


Push Back

by Tealightful



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Ambiguous/Open Ending, BAMF Matt Murdock, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Matt Murdock, Gen, Hell's Kitchen Has a Lot of Dickhead Children, I Wrote this After Reading Lord of the Flies and You Can Tell, Matt Has a Lot of Anger, Mention of Jack Murdock, Mild Ableism, Sister Maggie is an Angel, Staying true to canon with extremely long 1 v 6 fight scenes, Teen Matt Murdock, mention of Steve Rogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-21 07:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17638865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tealightful/pseuds/Tealightful
Summary: Matt turned his head when his father made the decision that cost him his life and Matt his family. He promised that would be the last time he looked the other direction.Or: The orphanage gets a tiny vigilante.





	1. Chapter 1

Crime had surrounded Matt his whole life. He did not need heightened senses to notice muggers in an alleyway or drug deals for steroids or prescription pills. His only option was to look the other way and forget he saw anything.

After he became blind, the biggest change was the amount of stuff he had to turn his head to. He would be talking to his dad or trying to fall asleep, and in the background hear violence he should have been too young to know about. On a good day, all he would hear was those muggers and drug dealers. Most days, far worse people lurked around Hell’s Kitchen. There was nothing he could do.

He heard the deal his father made, and he turned his head. He promised that was the last time he would ever look the other way. He was going to help his city.

Matt was good with his head. Hating homework did not make him any worse at it. Before the promise, he pushed past the things he heard after staying up too late to watch his father on the small TV, and he did his math problems or reading comprehension questions. He studied Braille for a bit if he was feeling up for it.

Matt was good with his head, but he did not need it for his homework anymore. His father wanted him to go to college and do something stable. Ridiculous. He was nine years old and had already lost both of his parents, blinded himself by saving an old man, and gotten some super senses. Stability was not in his nature.

 

******

 

This philosophy worked in his mind, but after putting some thought into in he discovered that if he was going to be a hero, like Captain America in the books he read, he needed to contradict himself.

His age limited what he could do. He was way too young to be roaming the streets and beating up full-grown adults. Everything he knew about fighting came from watching his father on TV. His father never gave him even the most basic tips on how to throw a good punch. He could not save anyone if he was dead, which meant a lot of turning his head. “Picking his battles,” he called it so he would not feel like he was abandoning his purpose.

As much as he hated it, he had to learn how to fight before he could actually, well, fight. Going into a fight he knew he could not win would not do any good.

 

******

 

The boys Matt lived with were not the stereotypical good Catholic boys one would expect walking into a church orphanage.

A lot of them were not Catholic. This was not a problem in Matt’s eyes, nor was it a problem in some of the nun’s eyes. Most of them brushed it off, believing it to be a rebellious phase the boys would grow out of.

One problem was the general disrespect in mass. They laughed and talked through the sermons. On many occasions the boys would be so hysterical they would swing their legs and kick the pews in front of them. The nuns lectured, punished, and preached, but the boys were so thick-headed that their words never sank in.

This was not the worst of it, not by a long shot, but it revealed a major part of their character to Matt. The boys lacked empathy.

Matt’s hands gripped the edges of the seats as the vibrations rippled through the ground and the boys whispered about the hideous faces and permanent scowls of the nuns who had done nothing but try to help them since they arrived in the orphanage. Matt stared forward and listened to the pastor with one ear, and with the other he eavesdropped on their conversations. He hated it, but he could not stop listening.

They whispered about other people too, like the fat kids, the quiet kids, the depressed kids, and above all, the blind kid who never wanted to talk to anyone.

The boys talked about Matt a bit louder. A lot of people talked to him a bit louder, because blind people are also deaf, apparently. The boys believed they could get away with more when talking about a blind kid. Matt never stood up for himself, even when they attacked his father. He stayed quiet and did his homework because he could take a verbal punch better than the kid whose parents abandoned him and left him alone in this damn orphanage, or the kid who hated their disabilities and was not superhuman because of them. He was the lucky one here.

He was ten when it picked up from whispers to teasing. At first, they only picked on him, but it progressed to the others.

Joshua was the worst. He was clever, full of wit, and malicious. His second favorite victim, first being Matt, was Carl, a fat kid with a kind yet fragile heart. Joshua targeted the fat parts, and exploited the fragile ones.

Matt sat on his bed and read a braille book on Taekwondo, the most promising fighting style he had found, second only to boxing. Carl was on the other side of the room. He turned pages and mumbled to himself. Even standing next to him, no one could hear Carl, but Matt could tell from what Carl said that he was reading a Captain America book.

Joshua walked to him and snatched the book from Carl. “Hey!” Carl said.

“Really? You’re reading this hero book?” Joshua examined it and glared at the pages. “This is all propaganda to make stupid kids like you caught up in some story, and pretty soon you’re lying dead in some foreign place with twenty bullet holes in your body.”

Carl stood and reached for the book. Joshua held it above his head. He was tall and slim, putting the book well out of reach of Carl. “I just like the story, alright? Give it back!”

“Why do you,” Joshua looked up and down Carl’s body, “like a Captain America story?” He laughed a bit towards the end and scanned the room for a reaction from his audience, which Matt then became aware he was part of. A couple boys laughed along.

“Captain America started as a little guy—”

“A little guy, huh.” That earned him a laugh.

 _Stay out of it. Carl is fighting for himself. Don’t take that away._ If he stopped fighting, Matt would, well, he would cross that bridge when he got to it.

“He was the _underdog_ , and he stood up for people. He was _good_ , and one day someone saw that and they made him, uh, cool, I guess, and awesome. He was amazing.”

Here’s the moment where, if this were some happy-go-lucky movie like _Annie_ , all the boys would stare off in the distance and consider what he said, sigh pensively, and share tales about being adopted or running away to a far-off land with no rules or chores. They would ease the burden of their lives by joining in fraternity against a common enemy of society.

They knew the truth. Captain America was such a rare case that some people thought he was fictional, even after he was revived. Life isn’t like the little green aliens in _Toy Story_. None of the boys could sit around waiting for a miracle to come out of the sky and save them from their miserable existences. Even at their young ages, they saw how tough life would be for them. Prayer would not change that, despite what the nuns would have them believe.

Joshua echoed their thoughts. “Do you really think anyone’s going to see the goodness in your heart and make you into a hero?”

“No, but it’s still a nice story,” Carl mumbled.

“Here’s a question,” Joshua said, “Did Captain America ever stick up for a fatty like you?”

Carl stopped trying to take back his book. “It didn’t say.”

“That’s because it didn’t have to. The only fat slobs in his time were rich pieces of garbage that lazed around all day having the little guys—you know, the ones Captain America defended, do all the work for them.”

“That’s not—”

“Everyone was poor! People couldn’t afford to feed themselves enough to be fat. Except the rich people. Captain America hated rich people because they took the little guy’s food. He thought fat people were lazy, selfish, self-pitying do-nothings.”

The audience, which had grown from the shouting, quieted in shock. Boys did not say that kind of thing to each other. “Here’s your book.”

Carl shook with embarrassment. He grabbed the book and stuffed it in his pillow. He sat on his bed and locked his jaw.

Matt stood. He put his book on his bed and walked to Joshua. His posture was straight. His hand clenched and relaxed. He smiled, but none of the boys would see him as a friendly presence, least of all Joshua. “Apologize.”

“For what?” Joshua asked.

“For stealing his book and teasing him.”

Matt heard a quiet, “no,” from Carl. No one heard him, and Joshua continued, “I gave it back, so I never stole anything. And I didn’t tease him, we discussed superheroes like boys do.”

He shifted his head and paused for a moment. The smile wiped itself away. “Apologize now, because you know damn well what you did.”

“Ooooh. Don’t let Sister Abigail hear that kind of language.”

The doors opened. “Hear what kind of language?”

“Speak of the devil,” Joshua said under his breath.

“Joshua, you can help me clean the dishes for the next week,” she said, “Anything else to add?”

Sometimes Matt loved living with nuns. They had dealt with boys for so long that they could read any situation and know the instigator. “No, Sister Abigail,” Joshua said.

“Do you boys have anything to do?” she asked.

The boys scattered to their day-to-day activities. One of them said to a friend, “I thought for sure Joshua was gonna beat the blind kid to a pulp.”

“Matt?” Sister Abigail asked.

“Yes?” He turned to the direction of her voice and smiled a bit.

Pause. “What are you doing?”

He shrugged. “Just making sure no one was giving Carl too much trouble.”

“Mmm, hmm.” She nodded. "I hope you are smart enough to avoid starting a fight.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.

 

******

 

It was the middle of the night, and Matt was still awake.

He was not the only one, and they were all awake for the same reason. He listened to the slow breathing of the ones that were truly asleep, and the light but faster breathing of the ones faking it while the nuns walked through the aisle of beds to check that the boys were sleeping. He could also hear the quick breaths and whimpers of a couple boys, the ones that accidently fell asleep and suffered what the boys who were still awake strived to avoid.

Matt dreamed of a lot of things. He dreamed of the night his father was murdered and the feeling of blood, still wet and warm, covering his fingers. Sometimes he dreamed of his father being shot while he ran in slow motion to save him. He was never fast enough.

He also dreamed of other things. His subconscious put stories, horrible stories, to the screams he could hear while he slept. Sometimes his father would come to him, saying, _some kid is losing his parents tonight. Are you gonna let that happen? Did you let it happen to me?_ He begged his dad to believe him, that he did not know, and if he had a chance he would go back in time and tell him to hit the mat in the fifth so he would still have a family.

The worst dreams disguised themselves as the best. He would wake up and his father would be there, telling him _Come on, Matty. I’ve got to be at the gym in an hour._ Sometimes, in these dreams, he could see, but most of the time he could not. It did not make a difference. He had a dad again, if only for a night.

He would open his eyes in the morning, a smile still on his face, and the loneliness would hit him like a punch to the chest. He tried not to cry, but he was awful at that. He was decent at hiding it though, and lucky for him, no one had caught him yet.

Matt was awake, pushing away the nightmares for as long as he could. He always ended up asleep, as one could only lie in the dark for so long before succumbing to sleep.

The nuns left, satisfied the boys were asleep. Approximately ten seconds later, a boy rustled the sheets. Feet hit the floor and walked over to Matt. A pillow pressed against his face. He could not breathe.

His lungs ran out of air and his arms reached to the pillow to pull it off. The other boy had the advantage and could push his entire body weight on the pillow. Matt flailed on the bed and reached to the boy to push him away or hit him enough that he would recoil. In his current position, his arms were helpless.

 _Legs_ , some part of his mind reminded him of. He flipped his body backwards and his right foot connected with the boy’s face. The weight left the pillow and the boy stumbled backwards. Matt stood and raised his hands in fists. Hitting the boy in the face did little more than irritate him.

“You broke my nose!” Joshua shouted. He was closer to shock than to anger.

“You tried to suffocate me,” he said.

Joshua growled and swung at Matt with his full body weight. Rookie mistake; Matt knew he was coming way before he reached him. He punched Joshua’s side with a hook. Joshua wheezed, and while he was distracted Matt pushed him over the bed. Joshua was off-balance and fell over in a clumsy dive.

His face was in the ground, his legs were on the bed, and Matt could not help but feel a little satisfied with himself. Joshua stood and brushed his knees. He jumped on the bed and tackled Matt.

They both fell on the ground hard, Matt on his butt and hands and Joshua on his knees. Matt hit the concrete floor and felt a bit of pain. A _crack_ jerked him on his feet. The source, he discovered, was Joshua’s knees.

Joshua’s knees must have broken, but he did not care. The adrenaline high put it at the back of his mind. His father had a particular look in the ring when he got a major injury. The look was rage, pure rage, and all he had in his periphery was his fist and the poor other guy’s face. Matt imagined this was what Joshua’s eyes looked like.

Joshua straddled Matt. He was trapped. Matt raised his arms to cover his face, and simultaneously Joshua started swinging. He hit Matt’s arms and growled when he could not hit Matt’s face. It still hurt Matt, both on his forearms which were sure to have dark bruises on them later, and when his arms slammed into his face.

In the background, all the boys were awake. Joshua’s group had blocked the doors with something, either they held it closed or they wedged a board in the door handles. They also pushed away people who wanted to break up the fight, either with intimidation and shoving, or if that failed, punching them in the gut and kicking them back to make room for other boys to come to the front and cheer.

Joshua’s knuckles must’ve started to hurt, or he grew bored with punching forearms. Either way, he climbed off Matt and stood. Matt was confused but in too much pain to move away. Joshua kicked his side hard with a little jump for extra power before. He was not wearing shoes, but Matt still grunted. He kicked him a second time, and something cracked. He screamed and his instincts finally kicked in.

He scrambled away while standing. He ran into some bystanders that pushed him into the circle. One of them pushed on the spot that Joshua kicked. Matt staggered. Fractured ribs, maybe, but he could not deal with that now. The nuns were not going to save him today.

Joshua could barely stand from his cracked knees, which did not stop him from laughing at Matt when he had an equally difficult time standing.

Matt hopped forward and kicked at Joshua’s leg. Matt winced, but Joshua screamed and fell onto his knee, and then on his stomach. He flipped over but Matt was already there, sitting over him and holding his shoulders down.

“I’m going to keep this short because we are all tired,” Matt said softly. The crowd of boys around him quieted. “Leave me alone. Keep your stupid comments to yourself. I’m blind, but I can kick your butt any day, and I will. The only reason you weren’t in a coma in ten seconds is because you were so much of a _coward_ that you attacked me in the middle of the night with a damn pillow. You pull any more of this crap, and I’ll send you to the hospital so fast your head will spin.”

“Screw you.”

Matt moved away from Joshua’s shoulders and rested his leg on Joshua’s knee.

“Ow! Ow, Okay. Stop!”

“Are we done?”

“Yeah, we’re done.” Joshua stood up and looked around. “What are you looking at? Go to sleep!”

The crowd scattered and returned to their beds. The doors busted open and five nuns ran in.

“Who started this?” Sister Maggie asked.

Neither Matt and Joshua nor the crowd of boys, most of which were now snuggled innocently in bed, said a word. Sister Maggie knew Joshua was at fault, and even if she did not know for sure, she had always been partial to Matt.

“If neither of you fesses up, I’m putting both of you on laundry duty for a month.”

Joshua cringed. He hated the idea of spending several hours a day with Matt. “Alright, fine. I started it.”

Sister Maggie sighed. “I’m disappointed in you.” That was a lie. She knew Joshua was a bad kid. “Let’s get you upstairs. I’m sure you need to be patched up,” she said.

 

******

 

Sister Maggie thought they would need a bandage or something simple like that. She was disappointed to learn the state they were in.

Joshua was worse off. Both of his kneecaps needed surgery and he could not walk for six weeks. As soon as he could walk, he was doing the laundry for the next two months. His nose got better on its own after a bit. Matt regretted letting the chance to hit him harder escape, as Joshua’s nose was not crooked even by a little bit after he healed.

Matt had a cast on his right arm for two weeks. He needed special bandages for his ribs and he had to do breathing exercises so he healed properly and did not contract pneumonia. He spent three weeks confined to a bed. In that time, he read a lot of books about fighting styles and learned some new ones he liked.

After his ribs healed, he itched to do something. The books he read were on his mind, and they pushed him to sneak out of the church and go to his father’s gym for the first time since he died.

He left his glasses at the orphanage, which made him conscious of where he looked so he did not accidentally stare at the Sun and give himself a headache. If he wore his glasses, people in the gym might recognize him as “Jack Murdock’s blind kid,” and he wanted to be left alone. He was decent enough at eye contact when he tried, but if he did not look at someone right, they would assume he was a shy kid and not think more of it.

The gym reeked of sweat and blood. Matt could taste the salt and copper in the air. If the smell was not so unpleasant and tainted with the memory of his father’s death, he could call it a familiar smell, like returning home. He focused on listening to the room and kept his head down so the boxers would not recognize him.

He forgot gloves and tape for his fists, and he did not have any calluses to go without. Few people could. He could work on kicking instead.

Punching was simple and natural aside from a few small techniques he learned from watching boxing. Kicking was the difficult part. If he kicked too slow, his enemy would catch his foot and he would fall on the floor. If he tried to kick faster, he might fall over or lose power. He needed to learn to kick with the correct part of his foot so as not to hurt his toes or have weak kicks. On top of that, there were so many types of kicks, and he had to learn them all if he wanted to be a real fighter.

One of the punching bags in the corner of the room was available. He walked around the boxing ring and situated himself in front of the punching bag.

He raised his arms in a fighting stance and lightly bounced to keep his mind aware. He swung his leg and hit the bag on the side with the top of his foot. The bag remained still. He pulled his foot into his chest and kicked the bag with the base of his foot. Again, the bag stayed put, and this time Matt fell over on his back.

A few boxers looked his way for a moment and then returned to training. Matt leaped on his feet and shook himself off. He bounced a few times and got back into a fighting stance.

He kicked at the bag again, this time with more success. It spun and moved from side to side. A little smile bloomed on his face. He gave two punches an inch from the bag to keep himself loose and in a fighting mindset. He circled the bag on his toes.

He trained for a half an hour that day and every day after. Back and forth, from the church to the gym, training for the day he would finally be able to make a real difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is finished and just needs to be edited. It will be out by next week.


	2. Chapter 2

In the years that followed, Matt grew up as children do, but he also became more mature. His fervor for becoming a vigilante trickled away. He would hear things and the dream would return for a moment, like an ex-smoker when they see the cigarettes behind the counter. The dream was addicting for a while. It gave him something to work towards when he did not have any friends or family.

He never stopped training. When an opportunity presented itself, he escaped the church for an hour or two and went to the gym. He was not the bulkiest kid in the orphanage, but he could take any of them in a fight.

Sometimes he did. In a sense, he was a vigilante in a small way. A slap on the wrist would not change the boys. The nuns could not do anything to correct their behavior. Matt might not have changed any of the boys, the bad ones that is. He liked to think—and sometimes he would be told by one of them, that he helped the good ones.

The fights spawned rumors that he was not blind. Most of the boys believed them, but he continued to act like he was completely blind, no special senses or anything. He tried to ignore them and ignore his feelings. He was on this planet to help people. He would do that to the best of his ability without regard for his desires.

Matt was sixteen, and he had what he never thought he would have again after his dad died: a future. He was in the process of applying to Columbia University and majoring in law. He planned on becoming a defense attorney to help the people he listened to day and night for the past seven years. College would change his life.

In the meantime, the best part of his day was training. He left the gym with a smile on his face.

The night had begun, and the cold set in. The streetlights and headlights gave plenty of light for pedestrians, and of course darkness did not matter to Matt. To other people, darkness gave protection and hid them from the law. The streets were quieter, making sirens and criminals the front of Matt’s mind. They were everywhere. These moments brought the dream back to him, and he believed for a moment, an exhilarating yet nauseating moment, that he would become a full-time vigilante.

“—kidnapping—”

Matt tuned in. The voice came from about two blocks away. He veered in the direction of the voice.

“It’s not a damn kidnapping. All we’re doing is roughing him up a bit, enough to scare the guy. It’ll take thirty minutes, and most of that’ll be finding him.”

“Rough him up,” another guy said. He had five people with him, six heartbeats total. “That’s what you said yesterday.”

“How many times do I have to say it? That was an accident. Jesus. Look, if you want to take a night off, then get the fuck out.”

“That wasn’t an accident!”

“—Shh!”

“That was a murder. Some guy’s dead because he couldn’t pay you.”

Matt shivered, and it was not because of the cold. He grabbed his jacket tighter anyway.

“Do you have a problem?”

All the heartbeats quickened except one, which Matt assumed was the one who spoke, the leader. One of the hearts sped up more than the others.

“No. Let’s do this.”

Matt was nearby, a couple buildings down from the alley the six guys were in. He stopped there.

These guys were going to attack and possibly murder someone. They already killed one guy, and Matt would bet it was not their first. He could report them and walk away. That would be the end of it, and he could put this stupid, childish dream behind him and go to college and have friends, maybe a girlfriend.

If he stopped these guys, he would never stop. The first taste was all he needed. The sirens and screams he had listened to for seven years would be a bit quieter, even if for one night. He had been capable of helping people for a year or so now. He was strong and skilled enough to take those guys.

The police were too slow. He listened to the radios in the cars where the sirens came from. He knew how many times the tip was too late, and how many times the police arrived not to a terrified family waiting to be saved, but to a few dead bodies and an empty crime scene.

He took his jacket off and wrapped it around his eyes and over his hair to mask his face but leave his mouth and nose uncovered, and ran into the alley. He threw his stick against a wall and readied himself for a fight.

The men took a second to react. They could not see Matt in the streetlights as well as Matt could hear their heartbeats and feel their body heat.

One of the men pulled out a pistol. Matt leaped behind a dumpster. He did not know how to deal with a ranged weapon.

He dashed out in sight of the man with the pistol. The man hesitated, maybe he did not want to kill someone, or he wanted to be accurate so the bullet did not ricochet and hit one of his guys. Whatever the reason, it gave Matt time to run to him and fly into the air to butterfly kick the weapon out of his hands. He slid it towards the road so it would not be a problem anymore.

While he got rid of the weapon, the men surrounded Matt. He raised his hands in fists.

He punched one of them in the face and kicked his kneecap with his heel. The man gave a muffled scream and fell on his knees. Matt kicked him in the face and jumped over him to flee the circle.

One down, five to go. The leader stepped in front of his guys and rolled his neck in preparation. His heart raced, betraying his cool exterior. He swung at Matt, who dodged and sacked him with a punch to the side of the head. The leader collapsed so quickly that Matt thought he died for one horrible second.

The men were frozen. Matt figured a couple of them were ready to flee the scene as soon as an opportunity presented himself. He smiled a bit, hated himself for enjoying this, and smiled some more because damn him to Hell, but this was satisfying.

“You are so dead,” one said.

“Get out of here, man,” another said from behind the others.

Matt stayed silent. He circled them like a vulture to keep them from surrounding him. His heart was strong enough to make him nauseous. His hands were up and he stood on his toes.

The biggest guy, who was approximately six feet tall and weighed well over two hundred pounds, lounged at him, followed by the rest of them. Matt backed away from him not out of fear, but as a strategic move. His mind was on dodging and keeping the men in front of him. If the men attacked him at the same time, he would lose.

The big guy laughed. “What a bitch.” He stopped his charge and moved aside for the others to attack Matt.

The first to him punched at his stomach, but Matt blocked and punched his face. He spun and kicked the man’s abdomen. He stumbled backwards and knocked into his allies like a bowling ball. He tripped on their legs and fell on his butt.

The other two got to Matt at the same time. He blocked a punch to his jaw but missed the other punch to his arm. It hurt a bit, and it was bruised, but not broken. He kicked at the man’s kneecap and punched his nose. It only aggravated the man.

One of the men kicked his leg out of him. Matt could not lose his balance, but the kick pushed his feet out from under him. He did the worst thing one could do in a street fight: he fell on his back.

Before he could stand, a man kicked his face. His jaw ached, and his nose exploded in pain. It overwhelmed him. Blood rushed out of his nose. He put his hands up to block more hits to the face, and immediately a strike landed above his kidney. He scanned, and his fear was confirmed. A rib broke.

The big guy and the one he pushed back earlier came to join the assault. Their footsteps approached Matt, and he panicked. In a blur of knee jerk reactions, he kicked at one guy’s leg and grabbed another’s ankle, which distracted them long enough for him to roll away and jump to his feet. He raised his hands in fists and coughed a few times, tasting blood and aggravating his broken rib.

Matt spun and swung his leg around. His heel connected with the side of a head, and the man fell. He was unconscious. Matt had a slight rush of excitement from gaining the high ground after the near-death experience.

Another man ran and punched at his good side, thankfully. Matt elbowed him and punched him in the nose. His hand came back wet. This was the same man who he punched in the nose earlier. Matt exasperated the injury, and the man gave a short, low scream.

The man clutched at his nose which left his torso exposed. Matt kicked his stomach and shoved him. The other two men were preparing to attack.

Matt jumped and snapped his leg at one of the two’s neck. He turned to the other and punched him twice in the face and a quite a few times in the stomach. When he was finished with the man, he was barely able to stand. Matt struck him in the nose and shoved him to the ground.

“Are you fucking serious?” the big guy who backed off earlier said. The guy was so lazy Matt forgot about him. He figured the big guy would have jumped into the fight when the others started to be knocked out.

A quick check told him everyone was unconscious or disabled except this guy. It encouraged him to push past his broken rib and a possibly fractured nose and jaw.

He waited for the man to attack. It took a second, but the big guy stepped forward and slung his arm. Matt blocked it and punched his shoulder. Matt was a seasoned fighter, yet the punch hurt his fingers.

He tried to grab Matt’s arm, but Matt stepped away and fled behind the man. He reached for the guy’s neck and wrapped an arm around it. He pulled it which choked the man and set him off balance.

The guy was taller and stronger than Matt. He reached to his neck and clawed at Matt’s arms. He could not pry them, and grabbed onto Matt’s head. He bent over and threw Matt over his head. Matt landed on his back and laid there for a moment.

They caught their breath. Matt stood and tackled the man. They fell on the ground. With his weight and strength, the man easily flipped Matt on his back and pinned him to the ground. Matt was stuck. He grabbed and clawed the man’s arms.

The man punched Matt in the jaw which inflamed the previous injury. Matt clawed at his eyes and squirmed to free some space. The man had him stuck.

His arms flew to his face. He stopped attacking and started blocking punches and moving his head out of the way.

The punches got weaker. The man must have believed Matt was finished, or maybe the man was tired and sore. He let his guard down and gave Matt a chance to spring into action. He wrapped his arms around the man’s neck and pulled him down, and he rolled over while the man was in a state of surprise.

Matt grabbed his neck and squeezed hard. The man wheezed and tried to growl and scratch at Matt’s hands, but his attempts failed. In a few moments, the man was unconscious.

Matt climbed off the man and checked again to make sure the criminals were unconscious. Once he confirmed it, he collapsed against a wall and continued to listen to their heartbeats. He took his jacket off his head and held it in his arms like a child holds a stuffed animal. His stick was on the ground next to him and he picked it up and folded it into his lap.

The adrenaline was present, but its effects were wearing off Matt. He was animalistic for most of the fight. He was apathetic for a while. It was not about protecting some poor addict out there from greedy dealers. It was just a fight. In the moment, he forgot what he was doing. He put his morals aside and stopped these men from attacking him.

This troubled Matt. Guilt crashed into him. He went out of his way to attack people. He was acting outside of the law and using violence to fix things.

One of the heartbeats went faster. Matt stood and struck the man it belonged to in the head. It slowed again, but it told Matt he had to go unless he wanted round two of this fight. He listened for a mobile phone. There was so much background noise when he stopped to listen like this. Sounds of cars, chatter, and the wind blowing and weaving between buildings surrounded him. And, faintly, an electric current buzzed near the leader of the men.

He searched the man’s pockets and pulled out a phone, as well as heroin. He typed in the numbers 911.

He lowered his voice to speak once the operator recited her statement, “There was a fight in an alleyway on 47th and 10th next to the tattoo parlor. I didn’t see it, but I heard someone say the guys involved had a lot of drugs and a plan to murder someone.”

He hung up before the operator could reply and headed back to the orphanage, weaving through the alleyways and keeping his head down and his jacket wrapped around his body so no one would question why some sixteen-year-old kid was stumbling across the streets with a bloody nose, bruised face, black eye, and broken rib.

 

******

 

He knocked on the doors to the orphanage. It took a moment for them to answer, and in that moment Matt was convinced they intended to keep him outside in the cold for the night to teach him a lesson on sneaking out. When the doors opened, Matt exhaled and gave an apologetic smile to the woman who answered.

Sister Maggie was there. Matt was both relieved and put on edge. She was good at fixing him up when he beat up other kids. On the other hand, she gave a mean lecture.

“Wha—Matthew. What were you doing out there? Your face is all busted up!”

“Sorry, Sister Maggie. I fell down some stairs.”

“Where were you? Get inside, I’ll see what damage you have done to yourself.”

He shuffled inside and hid behind Sister Maggie as she led him away from sight of the other nuns and boys. “I was at the,” _Quick, Matt, think!_ “Animal shelter.”

“Mmm hmm. And you got into a fist fight on the way back from the _animal shelter_?” She turned an evil eye to him that he would raise hairs on the back of his neck without his super senses.

“How did you know I was in a fist fight?” he asked.

“Your knuckles, unless you punched a wall and it punched back on your jaw and nose. At the rate you’re going, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn you managed to antagonize a brick wall one day.”

He turned his head to her. “It’s hard to explain. I don’t want to lie to you.”

“Lying by omission is lying,” she said, but did not press further.

Sister Maggie led him to a small bible study room that smelled stronger of dust than any other place in the building. Small windows were on one side of the wall, and on the others, posters rustled from the heating vent, probably saying something about bible verses or events the church held. The center of the room had a large circular table with small chairs around it. Matt and Sister Maggie sat next to each other in a chair.

“Mind if I go grab a first aid kit?” she asked. He shook his head. “Don’t go anywhere.” She nodded and left the room.

He should tell Sister Maggie. The hardest thing would be explaining he could, in a way, see. He could find his way around without a stick, in fact he could parkour around the city if he wished. He could hear anything in the building, every confession, every prayer, every private conversation, and all he had to do was listen. Other than that, the only major secret was sneaking out every day to go to the gym.

Oh, and how he could have stopped his father’s death. The reminder of that, which he had never told anyone, not even his priest in confession, made him set his elbow on the table and rub his forehead. It set in on his heart and made it drop to his stomach.

That plus the injuries which by now gave him extreme dull pains made him scramble for the tiny trash can next to the door. He threw up and by some miracle it all made it into the trash can. It was a small amount, but the taste almost made him hurl again. Sister Maggie walked into the room with a small box that rattled a bit, the first aid kit.

“Please tell me you aren’t drinking.” Her heart rate leaped despite the attempted joke, and Matt hated that she needed to ask that.

“Sober. I swear,” he said.

“Then what’s this about?”

“Probably the throbbing pain in my side.” He stood and winced. Sister Maggie did not help him to the chair. She never was one for sympathy.

She sighed and threw out her arms in exasperation. She sat next to Matt and started to check his side out. “Do you want to talk about it?  It might help. Nothing will leave this room.”

It was unlike her to say something like that, but Matt supposed she was not heartless. He was aware he looked like a kicked puppy. Not even Sister Maggie was immune to that.

“People always say, ‘look to God. He shows us signs all the time, if we are willing to see Him’. Do you sometimes feel like the signs are pulling you in two directions?”

“Matt, I’m no old woman yet, but I have experience, and from what I have seen, when it looks like His signs are pulling us in multiple directions, one of them is our mind playing tricks on us. We want something, and we say He wants it for us.” She wrapped bandages around his side.

“How do I tell which one is the real sign?”

“You can never be sure, of course. A long time ago, just before I gave my final vows, I met a man. I am only a human, and temptation devoured me. I told the nuns ‘God was calling me to this man, and away from this life’. I still felt that pull to being a nun, but I knew this man would bring me happiness. He did for a while, but I had an epiphany, and I realized I turned my back on the Lord.”

“So, what? I try things and wait and see if I am straying from the path?”

“I’m not explaining myself well. People change, but everyone has some aspect of themselves that has been there forever. That’s the God-given part, you see? I wanted to be a nun for so long, and I turned away from it because I wanted to start a family. Temptation comes from outside of ourselves. If you look inside of yourself, past the noise of the outside world, you will know the path you should take.”

Matt considered what she had to say. “Do you regret not starting a family with this man?”

She stopped wrapping the bandages around his abdomen. “Like I said, you can never be sure. The choice between starting a family and becoming a nun, well, I don’t think the Lord would mind if I chose either of those options. I like being a nun, and I have a sort of family with the children here, and the other nuns of course. Sometimes I wonder.” Her voice cracked. She rubbed her dry eyes. “You get one life. You only have a few true choices.” She resumed with the bandages. “I feel obligated to ask, yet somehow I don’t think I’ll get an answer.”

“I won’t tell you what my,” he paused, searching for a word, “circumstance is.” When she did not have anything to say to that, he continued. “I can’t tell you. All I know is I have been surrounded by violence and instability my whole life.”

“So have all of us. This _is_ Hell’s Kitchen. Violence and instability are pretty much the only constants.”

“I know. I just feel like someone should do something about it.”

“Someone who _is not you_. I have played doctor for you more times than any other child in this orphanage. That’s not favoritism. You get yourself into so much trouble. Punches can’t solve everything. Not to mention the fact that you are _blind_.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he lied, and then flinched.

She caught it. “What _did_ you mean?”

He said nothing. His stomach knotted. Sister Maggie was the closest thing he had to a friend, to a family. To anything, really. Why couldn’t he _tell her_?

“Sorry for scaring you, Sister Maggie. I can patch myself up from here.”

“No, _Matthew_ ,” she said, when he tried to stand and wobbled on his feet. “Stay. Please, I need to know you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” He took the rest of the bandages. “I’ll get these to you in the morning. Get some sleep.”

“Matt,” she tried, but he was out the door.

They did not speak again for many years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW. I know. I'm sorry. I had plans for more chapters when I started, but I started losing dedication to this fic and started having ideas for others that took the forefront of my mind. 
> 
> If anyone wants to take up a sequel, I would greatly appreciate it. A few ideas I had at the beginning were having Matt find out about Fisk after the New York invasion because Fisk only moved there because low property values. That way the timeline lines up right. Anyways, Matt uses Karen and Foggy to take down Fisk and they become friends. Eventually Matt finds out about his mom and happily ever after something something plot.
> 
> If that makes any sense to you, and you like it or parts of it, use it! If you hate those ideas and want to use your own, cool! Though this is technically complete, it still feels incomplete and unsatisfying, but I cannot finish this, so if this inspires you, let me know!


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